Housing market picks up

Anecdotal evidence that January was a good month for house sales has been confirmed by the latest stats from the Real Estate Institute.

Tuesday, February 20th 2001, 9:46AM

Anecdotal evidence that January was a good month for house sales has been confirmed by the latest stats from the Real Estate Institute.

REINZ residential property figures show a $5,000 jump in the national median sales price on the previous month, to $175,000. The total value of sales was also up, from $936.5 million in December to $994.9 million.

Institute President Rex Hadley said that the upturn in values was nation-wide, not merely a result of higher prices in the larger urban centres. Nine of the 11 regions posted an increase on January 2000 while the national price was the highest recorded for any January since 1996 (the year the survey began).

Hadley said that the low mortgage rate environment had not yet had an impact on national sales volumes. However, he expected to see market activity increase in direct proportion to continued interest rate easing.

The national sales volume for January was 4,741, up from 4,611 in December. However, that was still 473 homes less than for January 2000.

The Institute's rates survey for the month to February 10 recorded falls of up to 0.45 percentage points in floating mortgage rates. One to five-year fixed rates also fell anywhere from 0.05 to 0.95 percentage points.